In “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” the writer-director Kobi Libii’s debut feature film opening March 15, a mysterious group of Black people possess superpowers.
But unlike Black Panther or Miles Morales’s Spider-Man, this group doesn’t fight criminals or take on villains.
Instead, the members of this society wield their powers only for a very specific purpose: soothing the anxieties of white people.
This conceit satirizes the cultural trope of the Magical Negro, in which Black characters in a plot exist solely to aid the white protagonists.
By incarnating this trope in the form of a secret society set in present-day America, the film critiques the ways in which Black people continue to be forced into deference toward white people.
Persons:
Kobi, Miles Morales’s Spider, —
Organizations:
American Society
Locations:
America